From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility and the forthcoming novel The Lincoln Highway, a story about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel—a beautifully transporting novel. The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a … Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
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This book was not what I expected. By the time I realized that, I was already drawn in by the characters and I had to keep reading.
Give it a try. It’s probably different from whatever you’ve been reading. But that can be a good thing!
One of the best books I’ve ever read. Well written. Unusual plot line. Well developed characters. Descriptive settings. Almost visual in his descriptions
This story just stays with me. I still continue to think of the Count and his ‘family’ with affection, wondering what they did after the book finished. Absolutely wonderfully beautiful and engaging story.
This book is a real page turner. It is well written and you can clearly visualize the characters. I had no idea until the last few pages how it would end. Great reading.
I loved the references made to information people would know having received a classic education. Also, the tenor was positive, optimistic and hopeful. A running theme may be, “direct your circumstances or they will direct you….”
Beautiful writing and images pull this story along!
I would have to say this is one of the best books I have read in a while! The author has done an amazing job not only with creating characters who are interesting and quirky but the level of prose throughout the entire story is thoroughly enjoyable and not often found. The distinguished wit displayed by that of the main character played out in the iconic courtly Metropol Hotel of Russia makes for a read in which one can easily imagine themselves to be a hotel patron casually observing every scene fold out first hand.
There are occasions when you read a book that you get so absorbed by the language and the picture that’s being painted, it’s almost as if a stranger has pulled out a chair at your table and made himself at home, relating a tale that’s as unexpected as it is enchanting. At some point you wonder why this person chose you and why he’s sharing such an intimate story with a total stranger. Those thoughts pass quickly as you become invested in the characters and the scene he’s describing; he could be making the whole thing up out of thin air, but it doesn’t matter because you’re completely captivated and in no hurry to get anywhere.
This is how I would describe my experience with A Gentleman in Moscow. I was drawn in by the tone and the pace of the book, the gorgeous manners of a long-forgotten time, and by the novel circumstance of being held captive in a luxury hotel in the middle of Red Square. What’s not to like?
But the writer didn’t rest on his pretty phrases and astute observations alone. Underneath all Count Rostov’s quaint shenanigans—like creeping through the far recesses of the hotel’s underbelly with young Nina or becoming a plaything on a string for the petulant silent screen star—an epic adventure was afoot. While dazzling us with his brilliance—such as his knowledge of Russian political machinations or great thinkers and creative minds throughout the ages—he has laid a thoroughly satisfying and unexpected purpose, which banished my occasional worry that the book might only amount to a blissful dream-like journey with no real substantive value.
There were so many insightful, astute musings in this novel, something that doesn’t occur to such a degree in modern literature. But the premise of the story and the charming protagonist make it a knockout combination. Reading it was akin to drinking champagne in a bubble bath while some of history’s most indelible creative masters stop by to broaden your horizons. Bravo, Amor Towles! I can’t wait to read more!
This book was a glimpse into the past and showed how captivity made the main character flex and grow and ultimately become a man of use and purpose. I loved
I loved this captivating tale of a Russian count confined to permanent house arrest in a Moscow hotel from the 1920s. Funny, witty, touching, clever, tender, charming and always entertaining. It was a fascinating insight into Soviet Russia and the changes it went through over the 20th Century, seen through the eyes of one man forced to observe it from his tiny room at the top of the hotel. I fell in love with the Count – impossible not to. A fabulous book.
A true must read.
What a pleasure it is to get lost in a big book. What a talent for an author to have the entire story take place within the confines of a hotel over the course of decades, without the reader ever losing interest. The characters were so well drawn and so interesting, I wouldn’t have minded being a guest of the hotel for a decade myself. Run, don’t walk, to read or listen to this book. As an aside, I listened to the audiobook of this novel and it was fantastic. A great audio narrator makes all the difference.
This is one of my favorite books ever! When I finished it, I turned to page one and started over. I’ve never done that before. I read it again for two reasons: first, I just loved ‘the ride’ and wanted to do it again; and second, I wanted to pick up all the clues that had been dropped throughout the book that I missed the first time through. I highly recommend this one.
I loved this book so much I read it twice, back to back.
Pure joy. I loved every syllable of this book.
If you enjoy grammatical accuracy, fluency and wit, you’ll love this book.
I am giving this book only two stars, just to make sure that this review is read, as I have noticed that people read the best and the worst reviews to get a general idea, which I wish I had done before I bought this novel.
At page 409, with 53 more pages to go, I just realized that I have wasted my time and sadly not only mine but my friend’s as well, as I got her into reading it.
This book is nothing but a compilation of beautiful sentences (author’s MA in English from Stanford screams from each page) and paragraphs devoid of any purpose. I think this book should be re-titled as “The Phantom of the Metropol Hotel” as the characters are hanging around inside the walls being completely out of touch with the atrocious realities of life in the USSR in times of the Civil War, the Stalin regime, WWII and after that. Just when you think that it’s going somewhere, you are faced with another menu description and some sort of alcohol, which seems to be the leitmotif of the book. One should wonder how the Count’s liver did not give up.
There is some humor in the book that seems out of place and is hard to laugh at, as the plot is that impossible to imagine. It’s like being caught by the cannibals and see them laughing at something you will never understand. While people outside the Metropol hotel fight for their lives dying of famine and sharing bread and sugar to survive (and, BTW, we don’t learn this from the book), the protagonist is dining at some “best restaurant” in Moscow (were there any restaurants in Moscow at all back then?) pairing his food with wine for the whole 30 years he spent there. Why was he still there? Nobody knows. How is he paying for his stay? With some gold coins hidden in the furniture and miraculously overlooked by his handlers. These and many other questions pop up page after page. I wanted to quit many times but the promise to finish I gave my friend kept me going. The book is so unrealistic that the reader, especially if she happened to know a tiny bit on the subject, starts questioning her own sanity.
The author’s apparent love for words and his references to the most commonly known Russian names, places and writers (Andrei, the Bolshoi, Turgenev etc.) will keep the reader entertained until it gets annoying. The author’s ambition is to become the today’s Nabokov but unlike Nabokov’s novels, this book is lacking plot or purpose. Amor Towles is enamored with his own voice like Tetrao tetrix, a Russian black grouse made popular by the works of Turgenev and the like.
I hope this review won’t induce anybody to buy the book…
I do not recommend. I found it boring and the character boring.
A slow start filled with historical references to Russia that suddenly becomes a character-driven story set against the background of Russia’s strange and twisted journey from Counts and Dukes to comrades and brothers.
A most unusual story! A great choice for bookclub discussions.